Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-23
THE CONVICT LABOR QUESTION.
A Decidedly Pungent and Direct Letter
Upon t6e Subject.

EDs. RECORD UNION: The idea is wide
spread that convict labor is doing much to
lessen the wages of workingmen and
throw them out of employment. Strange
to say, your correspondent" Z. T. 81
| seems to be the first one who has had the
| courage to deny the fact and put the par
ties assertingit on their proof. On the con-
trary, both press and politician have joined
in with the complaint and recognized
the idea as true. The effect of prison
labor upon the market has been vastly
over-estimated. The truth is there is so
! little effect produced by il that it is not ap-
probable. Did any one ever estimate the
actual percentage and see from the facts
what might be the result? Let us ex-
anime them for moment
The whole number of conyicts EMPLOYED
in any kind of labor in the United States
/ is, in round numbers. 10000. The whole
number of manual laborers is 100000.
The proportion is as l to 400. For every
| convict laborer there are 400 free laborers.
But, owing to the peculiar conditions under
which prison labor is carried on, a man in
prison is only equal to half a man outside.
The actual proportion then, considering
men in their capacity to labor, is as to
800. In other words, for every days labor
done in prison 800 are done outside The
mere statement of the fact takes all inter-
est out OF the question. No sane man sup
poses that the addition of one man in 500
TO the laboring mass is going to affect it,
much less that the mere change of employ
ment of one man in 800 is going to cause
work to cease or wages to diminish
Yet one would imagine from the cry that
has gone up that there really existed a
I VI
petition exists only in the head of the fool
ish and on the tongue of the demagogues
The idea was started, and is kept alive by
the leaders of labor organizations, whose
sustenance depends on the amount of agi-
tatlon they can create, and by political as
pirants who think to ride into power on the
labor wave, and who are too cowardly and
selfish to tell the truth.
To suppose that 500 men employed in a
regular vocation are going to feel the en-
ployment of one more; TO suppose that
business employing 500 men is going to be
injured by one man more engaging in the
same business TO suppose that the wages
| of 800 men are going TO be reduced by one
additional man working at the same trade
! or calling; or to suppose that any number
of men are going to injure or perceptibly
affect 800 times as many in the same voca-
items, Is ridiculous in the extreme And
yet this must be assumed to allow any
merit to exist in this cry against convict or
prison labor
Indeed the figures given do not show the
facts as bald as they really are. So many
laborers included in our estimates are en-
ployed about prison grounds and in capac-
tiles not specially productive, that the act
ual proportion of prison laborers is still
smaller. The total product of mechanical
industries in the United States amounts to
about s., ,000000,000. The total product of
prison labor amounts to about S., ,000,OO0
or one-tenth of one per cent. of the whole
amount. The proportion is as l to 1000.
No man in his senses-not even a labor ag-
itator or State Prison Director-will, in the
face of such a fact, assert that the compe-
tition is in any degree perceptible or in
furious.
No doubt there are some honest men
urging this onslaught on convict labor, but
whoever they are, they are the dupes and
playthings Of designing men. 1t is quite
time that clearer perception of the facts
be obtained and that future action be based
upon statements baving basis in fact,
rather than on those evolved from too
fertile imagination. H